SANDAG knows where you've been

Regional program collects and stores license plate data

Watchdog Minute: License plate data

San Diegans unsettled by revelations that the federal government has collected vast troves of information about them might also look in their own rearview mirrors, as local governments are amassing data on their comings and goings for the purpose of fighting crime.

Police vehicles equipped with cameras pointing every direction canvass parking lots and streets, gathering data about the time, date and place individual license plates are spotted.

The information gets fed into a database maintained by the San Diego Association of Governments, a transportation and planning organization, cross-referenced with information on stolen vehicles and used to track down the bad guys.

Document

The San Diego Police Department finds the technology so helpful for policing that it wants to add more. A spokesman said the department has 17 vehicle-mounted systems, each of which cost $17,500 and includes four cameras for maximum coverage.

The technology can be used to monitor known drug deal locations, zero in quickly on a wanted felon or alert an officer to a sex offender in a school zone, according to the company that makes the cameras used by San Diego police.

He said the license plate information is so useful that, once a stolen vehicle is spotted, “patrol officers from different agencies often joke with one another about the competition between their agencies to intercept wanted vehicles.”

Entrepreneur Michael Robertson, 46, sees the warehousing of such data very differently, as an affront to privacy and opening for government abuse. He asked SANDAG to divulge information it had collected on him, and when the agency refused, he sued.

“They (the government) may collect it under the guise of stopping child molesters or catching terrorists or looking for stolen cars,” Robertson said. “It’s always a good premise, but ultimately when they have this data they can’t help but seem to use it for bad purposes, and I think that’s a real concern, and we’re seeing that exactly happen right now with the IRS and the NSA.”

Document

Robertson filed his challenge late last month in San Diego Superior Court.

At least one other agency in the state has handed over records similar to what Robertson requested, though an expert said the legal limits of disclosure under the California Public Records Act are still being tested.

Cameras mounted on police cruisers and in certain fixed locations collect the data. SANDAG uses information from more than 65 mobile and fixed cameras, the agency said in a January report.

In one 30-day period last year, the technology was used to analyze 1,700 seized vehicles in collaboration with the San Diego Law Enforcement Coordination Center, according to the January document. The center is an anti-terrorism effort for sharing information among federal, state and local government.

“These things pick up thousands of plates an hour,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who tried and failed to curb the use of license plate readers and the long-term storage of the data while in the state Senate last year. “The technology is quite extraordinary.”

The data are kept secure and monitored for potential abuse by police, Sgt. Grube said.

But civil liberties groups are pushing for disclosure of the data and limits on how long it can be retained. They worry the information could be used in inappropriate ways to figure out who law-abiding residents are associating with, if they’re frequenting a cancer clinic or a strip club, even what time they come home from work.

Document

Police say what the cameras may capture via license plate readers is no different from what a neighbor or police officer might observe. People should have no expectation of privacy in such situations, they say.

SANDAG stores the data from police cameras for two years and those from fixed cameras for one year, according to the January document.

In denying Robertson’s request for any records dealing with his own vehicle, SANDAG cited an exception to state public records law that shields information used in a police investigation — something he said does not apply to his situation.

“I’m not a drug dealer. I have two kids, drive a minivan,” Robertson said. “I’m not aware of any wrongdoing I’m suspected of.

“My strong assumption is they’re just declaring 3 million people in San Diego County as being under investigation.”

A SANDAG lawyer, in correspondence with Robertson, said the agency is “balancing the needs for confidentiality versus the benefits of disclosure.”

The public-records exception being cited can only be used in cases where the investigative work involving the records is ongoing, not for more blanket crime prevention purposes, said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which last month joined with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California to sue Los Angeles for access to a week’s worth of its data collected via license plate readers.

“This is all untested under the public records act,” Lynch said. “The jurisdictions all are treating this differently.”

Document

In 2010, Mike Katz-Lacabe of San Leandro obtained his license plate data from local police, more than 100 records or a rate of about one image per week. A cruiser even snapped a photo of his kids bounding out of his car while it was parked in his driveway.

Mike Katz-Lacabe, a computer security expert and school board member from San Leandro who obtained license plate reader data on his vehicles in 2010.San Leandro Unified School District

+Read Caption

Mike Katz-Lacabe, a computer security expert and school board member from San Leandro who obtained license plate reader data on his vehicles in 2010.

“I don’t think license plate scanners are a bad thing at all,” said Katz-Lacabe, a computer security expert and school board trustee, said. “My problem is with this retention of data for extended periods of time on people who are not suspected of or charged with any crime.”

Simitian, the Santa Clara supervisor, proposed to allow access to license plate reader data for parking ticket collections and repossessions but to require its destruction after 60 days, the same retention standard in the law for license plate data held by the California Highway Patrol and not being used in an investigation.

Even though Simitian ended up narrowing the bill to apply only to private vendors, he couldn’t overcome police opposition.

“Their view was if it solves one crime in 20 years, it’s worth it,” Simitian said.

Mike Katz-Lacabe's family exits their vehicle in his driveway, one of dozens of images the San Leandro man obtained in 2010 when he asked for license plate reader data on his own vehicles.
San Leandro Police Department

Mike Katz-Lacabe's family exits their vehicle in his driveway, one of dozens of images the San Leandro man obtained in 2010 when he asked for license plate reader data on his own vehicles.